Raub Trip for Musang King Durian Tasting

July was Musang King harvest season. We saw a lot of durian stalls at the roadside selling various breed of durian. From Durian kampung to D101, D24 and the previous crown Musang King. Even though the crown has been replaced by Black Thorn, Musang King is still the most popular and most sought after durian. This year I was surprised by the many grading of Musang King, for example, Grade B, Grade A, Grade AA and Grade AAA. Some even label as Highland Grade AAA Musang King. Like usual, the better the grading, the price gets higher.

We always had our durian in SS2 and some other places in KL. One day, we decided travel to Raub for Musang King durian tasting as we want to taste the fresh durian from the farm.

We actually had a tentative which was planned one week before we departed. Our first stop was supposed Alley Chee Cheong Fun at Jalan Tras Taman Permai for our breakfast. Since we did not have the exact location from the Google search, we failed to locate that place after a few rounds of navigating Taman Permai via Waze. 

Feeling disappointed, we headed over to New Tea House & KF Biscuits instead but the place did not have any dine-in service during RMCO. At last, we decided to drop by Ratha for breakfast as it was a few stones away from NKT&KF. We thought of order simple breakfast but the curry fish was charged at exorbitant price. It was RM59 per dish as shown above. End up our breakfast already RM90 together with nasi lemak, roti canai and 2 drinks for 2 persons only.

Since we were quite full, we decided to buy tofu at Chai Tofu factory at Bukit Koman. The factory was set up at the village house in the Chinese Village (finding parking is not easy as the village road is a narrow lane that only one vehicle can pass through). Bukit Koman is also known as the place for gold mining. For food, Bukit Koman is also resided by Hakka Chinese therefore there is a row of shop lot house that sells variety of Hakka cuisine (kuih). Unfortunately during our visit, we did not spot any. We guessed that the shops were closed temporarily for business during RMCO.

Our next stop was Sinn Loong Foodstuff Traders. All the peanuts were imported from China or Vietnam and processed in Malaysia. After washed, the peanuts were dried under the sun.

The size of the peanut was much bigger than my thumb.

At here, visitors get to see how the peanut is processed. It was my first time seeing the traditional oven for peanut roasting.

The roots of the peanut....when I was a child, my dad and my aunts always asked us to drink as to help us grow taller :D

After the peanut factory visit, we thought of going to have durian as our lunch. We were still full because of the hefty breakfast. But then if we were late, all the fresh durian would be sold out. Before we headed over to Uncle Thing durian farm, we passed by the signature mural featuring the durian as Raub is also known as Musang King "hometown" with a lot of durian plantation at this area.

Surprisingly, Uncle Thing durian farm is also a factory to process the durian for export.

The durian tasting area was built on a fish pond beside his durian farm. I would like to say his Musang King is good but the XO he gave us was not fresh at all. He said the fresh XO already being booked early in the morning and left only those at the shelf which was already not in tip-top condition.

After seeking their permission, we were allowed to go to his durian farm for a visit. Have you ever see a durian tree?

There were ropes tying from one branch to another to give support as the tree branch might break when there were 2-3 durians at the same branch. The average mature size of the durian is about 2kg.

Durian tree is a unique tree. You can have different durian varieties on the same tree. With some technique and knowledge that farmers have, they can do tree grafting that transforms the kampung durian tree to bear Musang King durians at one of its branches while D24 at other branches.

Posing with a durian tree 

Next stop was Kebun Sea Loy Kacang Goreng Sempalit. It was just a small roadside shop but no entry was allowed during our visit (RMCO). The factory next to it was not available for any visit as compared to Sinn Loong.

I like the golden peanut statue. It was a nice photo-taking spot.

Each peanut shop Sinn Loong and Sea Loy carry their own brand and differentiate itself via the packaging. The similarity is that they both also imported the peanut from China and Vietnam and processed at their place. Both also had the Kulit Harimau peanut from Vietnam and definitely, one of the must-try here :)

Before going back to KL, we planned to go to Cheroh fish farm to buy fresh fish. When we reached, we were told that the fish farm was closed permanently as the owner decided to transform the place into a durian farm to plant Musang King (was not updated in Google place yet). 

It was a bad idea to come here during RMCO as most of the businesses were still not open. We thought of going to the renowned Pak Harun Satay to give it a try but it was closed too.  We hope that everything will recover to the same and normal back during our next visit.

Our tentative if you guys wanna refer ~